It appears Daniel Ricciardo’s time in Formula One is rapidly drawing to a close. He was recruited at the insistence of Red Bull team boss last season to replace the failed rookie driver Nyck de Vries. The Red Bull and V-Carb driver line ups have become a political football over the past two seasons, with Dr. Helmut Marko and Christian Horner taking opposing views on who should be in which F1 seat.
Nyck de Vries was recruited following his stellar performance in 2022 when he stood in last minute for Williams Alex Albon who had been stricken on Friday night in Monza with appendicitis. The young Dutch driver qualified ahead of his team mate in P13 and went on to claim points for P9 in his maiden F1 outing.
Having won the F2 championship in 2019 as a Mercedes academy driver, De Vries then pursued a career in Formula E, winning the 2020/21 championship before finding his big break in Formula One. Dr. Helmut Marko backed Nyck to become the team leader for Alpha Tauri in 2023 against the wishes of Horner who preferred Daniel Ricciardo.
Red Bull driver lineup politics
Unfortunately, over the first ten races of the 2023 season where he, De Vries was beaten hands down by team mate Yuki Tsunoda and Dr. Marko admitted his decision to recruit the Dutch driver had been a mistake.
Horner then got his way as Daniel Ricciardo was promoted from reserve driver to race alongside the Japanese driver and initially it appeared the likeable Aussie would dominate his team mate.
Then in Zandvoort, Ricciardo broke his hand in practice and up stepped Liam Lawson to replace him for five Grand Prix. Lawson performed well, finishing ahead of Tsunoda in four of their five outings together, but the now fit from injury Ricciardo returned for the final five races of the year.
When asked in Abu Dhabi last year about Lawson’s future, Dr. Marko hinted his chance would come for a full time drive and it would before the beginning of the 2025 season.
Pressure from shareholders to sack Ricciardo
In seventeen appearances for AT and now V-CARB, Daniel Ricciardo has finished in the points just twice, meanwhile his team mate is having his bet season to date and secured a new deal in Montreal for at least another season.
Now it appear its Christian Horner’s turn to admit the error of his ways as Ricciardo is set to be replaced imminently by New Zealander Liam Lawson. Speaking this week to publication Kleine Zeitung about the future of the V-CARB driver line up, Dr. Marko claims there is significant pressure to ditch Daniel Ricciardo and soon.
“The shareholders have made it known that [RB] is a junior team and we have to act accordingly,” Marko claims.“The goal was that [Ricciardo] would be considered for Red Bull Racing with exceptional performances.”
“That seat now belongs to Sergio Pérez, so that plan is no longer valid. We have to put a young driver in there soon. That would be Liam Lawson.” Lawson has recently been linked with other teams as ten drivers are yet to be confirmed for 2025, so Red Bull will need to act to retain their junior rising star.
V-CARB upgrades failed
V-CARB brought significant upgrades to their car in Barcelona, but both Ricciardo and Tsunoda struggled at the Circuit de Catalunya which is the ultimate all round test of the pace of a Formula One car. Despite Ricciardo finishing the last two Grand Prix ahead of his team mate, it appears too little too late for the eight times Grand Prix winner.
Team boss Laurent Mekies was blunt in his appraisal of the team’s performance last time out in Spain admitting post race: “We came here with high hopes for the upgrades that everyone back in the factory has worked so hard to design and produce as part of our aggressive development strategy,” said Mekies.
“Unfortunately, right from the start of Free Practice we were lacking pace in every session. There is no point denying this was a poor weekend for us and although the gaps were very small, there’s no excuses for the fact we just weren’t competitive.”
As Marko stated, the plan for Ricciardo was for him to replace Sergio Perez, yet the Mexican driver managed t claim P2 in the 2023 drivers’ championship which was enough for him to remain alongside Max Verstappen.
Horner resists calls for change
Now the only Red Bull driver without a contract for next season, Ricciardo admitted earlier this week that the uncertain future has been “very taxing” in recent weeks. Horner has commented on the developing situation but remains neutral on the replacement of Ricciardo.
“Now, obviously, waiting in the wings is a driver with the talent of Liam Lawson, who naturally is champing at the bit to get an opportunity,” said the Red Bull boss.
“But there’s nothing pre-set or preordained as to when or even if that would take place. The priority is for sure for the drivers that are in the race seats at the moment and we’ll see how that pans out,” Horner confirmed.
Hamilton to assist rival Verstappen
Tsunoda credits Ricciardo with saving his career
Yuki of course is content with his team mate at present rather than the unknown potential of Liam Lawson. Tsunoda revealed recently that Ricciardo has been a huge influence for good on his “emotional control”, with the Japanese driver having struggled to perform consistently due to his bad temper during the races.
Yuki’s radio outbursts have become a thing of the past this season and his performances have benefitted from the lack of a red mist descending when things don’t go the way of the Japanese driver.
When Ricciardo is replaced by Lawson, it is almost certainly the end of the Australians F1 career following two years of failure at McLaren and now again at V-CARB alongside a driver more junior than himself.
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Red bull explain why they are not favourites in Austri
As the Formula One teams prepared to race in Austria last season, McLaren had been woeful during the preceding Grand Prix. The papaya liveried team had scored just 17 points while Red Bull Racing led the charge for the constructors’ championship on a whopping 323 points.
Yet the Woking based squad were to bring their first decent upgrade of the season, but only had enough components to fit to Lando Norris car. With Austria now a designated Sprint weekend, the teams have just one practice session before qualifying and McLaren with their upgraded car did a decent job in the Friday morning practice session.
Norris qualified in P4 on Friday afternoon for the Saturday morning short version of the Grand Prix and such was the improvement in the McLaren car Lando was less than two tenths slower than Charles Leclerc in second place… READ MORE
Liam Lawson should have been kept from the beginning. Ricciardo is a headcase and hasn’t performed in a GP in a long time.
Seconded. And more drivers are long past their expiration date… Bottas. Magnussen. Hamilton. Hulkenberg. Even Alonso.
There is this minimum age rule… there should be a maximum age rule too.